Darker than Black season 2 – ep 05

Episode 05: ” Gunpowder Smoke Drifts Away, Life Drifts Away…”

SUMMARY: Picking up from last episode, Madame Oreille meets with Kirihara near an abandoned observatory. She asks Oreille if she knows why BK-201’s star disappeared. Oreille answers that an anti-contractor weapon was used, and that it was actually designed to kill contractors. She notes that Kirihara saw a prototype of it 2 years ago, and Kirihara remembers the huge thingamajig that Hei deactivated in Hell’s Gate. Oreille gives Kirihara a couple of leads for her investigation, namely the info Kirihara’s looking for is written in the Mitaka documents held by a certain agency and that the keyword is “Izanami.” She then tells Kirihara to wish upon the tiny red star in the sky regarding seeing BK-201 again.

In Sapporo, Suou is practicing her aim and is quite into maintaining her rifle. Hei gives her some money for food. She keeps some but tells Mao she’ll spend some on food too since she wants to become stronger before she runs away. Suos and July go to the crossdressing guy’s bar for some food (we learn that his name is Lebanon, so I’ll start calling him that from here on). Lebanon says he knows Suou is a contractor even if she didn’t tell him since his wife, Michiru, is also a contractor. She became one when Norio was a toddler and left them behind. Outside, Norio, who is still head over heels for Suou, was waiting for her outside. He says his mom was a contractor too, and it must be fate that he met Suou. Suou just walks away. Meanwhile, we see Hei in the middle of  (s)nowhere, talking on the phone with his client (at least that’s what I assume). Hei admits that Suou is better with a rifle than he is, but insists that he can do the mission alone. However, his client wants Suou to take part in it.

Back at their hotel hideout, Suou shoots a hole in the wall after getting scared off by a cockroach, saying that she hates bugs now. Mao says she must’ve been traumatized by Tanya’s bug-summoning powers and after seeing Nika attacked by bugs. Suou assumes that Hei is gonna hit her again for messing up so she offers her left cheek since her right side still hurts from when Hei hit her last. To her surprise, Hei just walks away without hitting or reprimanding her. That night, Hei and Mao have a short conversation. Hei notes that Suou lacks consistency as a contractor and it seems she hasn’t lost her interests either, making it seem like she’s a contractor who’s still trying to be human, which makes Hei curious. Back at HQ, Kirihara tries to follow up on the leads Oreille gave her. She gets called in by Kobayashi for a mission. Kirihara, Hazuki, Shizume and Youko are to go to Sapporo to transport “Izanami” from there. She’s to participate in this mission since one of MIAC’s agent informed them that BK-201, who’s with a couple of kids, is also there.

Meanwhile, in Sapporo, Hei and company are attacked by a water-controlling contractor, though they manage to escape and later meet up at their makeshift “house/hideout” near the lake. Hei asks Suou to shoot a bird again, and make sure to kill it this time, saying that the purpose for this is to try and get rid of her irregularities as a contractor. Suou manages to do as she’s told and ends up crying after, though she can’t explain why. Kirihara and her team visit the hotel. Contractor agent informs them that’s where Hei stayed and he was with a girl. Kirihara is surprised to hear that he’s not with a boy. She remembers that Shion had a twin sister, but Hazuki suggests that girl may have been silenced by the military already (I think Kirihara suspects that Suou is the girl with Hei, though she didn’t finish voicing out her deduction). Norio finds out from his dad that Suou is staying at a hotel and goes there. To his surprise, he sees his mom leaving the place. He tries to chase after the car, but fails to catch up. Apparently, the water-controlling contractor who attacked Hei earlier is Norio’s mom, Michiru. He informs his dad about what he saw, but Lebanon won’t believe him. To their great shock, Michiru then walks into the bar.

In a mission briefing, Kirihara informs her team that “Izanami” will be transported by sea since BK-201 can easily blend in with the crowd at an airport. She is later taken to see “Izanami” (but we don’t get to see it). Meanwhile, Madame Oreille and the Goldilocks twins are shown. Oreille notes that the time has come for their wish and Kirihara’s to come true. Back to Hei and company, while eating an awful tasting meal that Suou made, Hei informs her of her first mission (we don’t get to hear about it). Mao says it’s a good mission for a first-timer. Suou is also going to be paid for her accepting the mission. On the day of the mission, a group of trucks are on a convoy to transport “Izanami.” Hei notes that he is to intercept and destroy the goods, but if he fails, Suou is supposed to aim and shoot at it. Hei manages to get through security and get into the truck containing the goods, but the truck then drives away with him inside it.

After the ED, we see Suou and July waiting for something by the sea. Suou is reminded of whales and remembers the time when she visited an aquarium with her family when she and Shion were kids. After reminiscing, she then sees a submarine surface.

~end of episode

IMPRESSION: I thought it was a pretty good episode. Not as awesome as the first 3, but better than episode 4. It’s too bad we didn’t get to see what this “Izanami” is that everyone seems to be after. Could it be Yin? I think so, but I’m not sure since Kirihara didn’t look too surprised when she saw what it was. Although, I don’t think she’s met Yin before in season 1, and I can’t really remember for sure. On another note, Lol @ Suou telling Hei that if he’s gonna hit her again, slap the left cheek since her right cheek still hurts. xD That actually works, coming clean like that. I remember an incident like that when I was a kid when I broke a plate but I ended up not getting punished because I fessed up to it before dad even noticed the plate was missing.

*ahem* Back on topic, I wonder what Oreille wants. Though it’s quite obvious that it’s connected to “Izanami,” Kirihara, Hei and company. Speaking of which, it turns out I was right with my earlier assumption that the thingamajig Hazuki used against Hei in episode 2 was the reason Hei lost his powers and that’s why his star faded away. Anyway, Hei was awesome when he fought Norio’s mom. Mind you, he doesn’t have his powers right now, so he did everything as his usual Black Reaper self. He’s quite impressive, isn’t he? He also intercepted the truck convoy and got through security… Although, that looks a bit suspicious to me, especially since the truck Hei got on suddenly got driven away by someone while Hei is still inside. I think it might be a decoy. It could be that Kirihara and her team anticipated that Hei would interfere and prepared a counter strategy. They keep “Izanami” safe and get Hei as well. But even if my suspicion turns out to be true, I’m sure that Hei will certainly figure it out and manage to escape somehow, since he definitely won’t give MIAC the last laugh. As per Oreille’s predictions, Kirihara might finally meet Hei face to face again. I don’t know how it’s gonna be, but they’re on opposing sides again, so there’s probably gonna be some sort of conflict.

With regard to that tiny red star Oreille mentioned, I wonder whose star that is… Could it be Suou’s or Shion’s? Or perhaps, Hei’s star initially faded then turned red before it turns bluish white again? And Hei’s client is also a bit suspicious. Why is this client so adamant that Suou participate in the mission? Hmm. We also got a bit more info about contractors. Well, we’ve actually observed some of it in the previous season (as with Amber, November 11, April, Mao, etc.) and I guess it depends on the person, but anyway, generally speaking, it seems contractors still manage to keep some of their emotions somehow though they don’t show it as they would normally do when they’re humans and they get confused too, as exhibited by Suou and Michiru. They remain rational beings after all. Michiru could’ve killed Norio or Lebanon, but she didn’t. She just left them and went on her own path as a contractor. It’s kinda similar with Shion as he could’ve killed his dad and Suou too, but chose not to. I think it’s going to be a pretty interesting next episode since Michiru showed up at Lebanon’s bar at the end of this episode and it looks like a powerless Hei will be facing off with Shizume next time. I’m curious how Kirihara will react, what Oreille is after, and what this “Izanami” is.

Something also occurred to me, it concerns dolls though. I wonder if July feels some sort of animosity against Hei. I mean, Hei was the one who killed April. July considered her his “comrade.” Yin chose to stay with Hei and thought/decided for herself in episodes 13 and 14 of season 1. I’m just a little curious if it’s possible for July to turn against Hei and company somewhere along the way…  I hope not though. I’m quite fond of him, and it looks like Suou, Mao and Hei are too~ ^^

Episode 6 preview… Michiru visits Norio and Lebanon at the bar to use the oven. Looks like there’d be some fighting between Hei’s team and the MIAC team, maybe with Norio and his mom in the mix too.

::Contractor/Doll Notes::

• Suou notes that every time her rifle materializes, it contains 1 round of ammo in the chamber and 5 more rounds appear in her pocket.

~Favorite quote/scene from the episode~

♪ Quote: Norio saying something about how it must be fate that he met Suou

• Norio: [too Suou] “Well, you see, the you in me shines more brilliantly than the fake starry sky!” Haha, nice line~ xD

♫ Scene: Suou’s homemade soup.

• Suou: “How is it?”
• Hei: [in his usual deadpan expression] “How it tastes doesn’t matter as long as it’s nutritious.”
  
• Mao: “So it tastes so bad that you can’t it eat unless you think that taste doesn’t matter.” xDD
  

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You might also want to check out my other related posts:

• Darker than Black season 2 – ep 06
• Darker than Black season 2 – ep 04
• Darker than Black ep 25 [FINALE]
  
• Darker than Black – series overview
• Extra: Darker than Black – main cast interview
  
• Other Darker than Black entries